Foregiveness
by carlyinrome
Summary: Faith&Zoë, light slash. There's a lot of crazy go se going on around here, but maybe we have something in common. Post Serenity the movie post BtVS S7 and AtS S5. After a request by Cadence.


**Forgiveness **

Things like "top three percent," I don't hold to. I've never been one for class or contest, but I know that if I were, I'd probably be the fastest draw for any three moons. And Mal, anytime he wants a precision shot, he trusts my hand before his own.

I've never been one for class or contest. Things like that, don't mean nothin'. Fastest draw, precision shot?

All of that, and I couldn't save him.

Zoë moves real quiet. I've never thought about describing anyone's movement like that – well, anyone but Angel – but the way she moves isn't like that. He was just old and he – he moved like a ghost, I guess, something faded away by time, a yellowed photograph . . . she's doing it on purpose. To not disturb ghosts, or something. 

There's something fucking wrong with her, I can tell. The lines of her arms, her neck, and then . . . the way she moves her hands, not like the way she moves her body, real quick, efficient? She's a fucking killer, you can tell. A warrior, like me, and my breed? We don't move in that whispering, don't-disturb-anything way. When I first got here – fucking warlocks, like I don't have enough shit to deal with without doing the time warp again – I just felt all burnt up and raw, flinching from everything, from the light, from Inara's gentle finger's tending my wounds.

And that's how Zoë looks. All the time.

Days drag by. I just try to ignore the count hammering incessantly at me: one day since he died, two days, three . . . I try not thinkin' at all, to push the thoughts away. Try keeping busy, but the thoughts keep working their way in.

I wonder if this is how River feels. Feels everything.

I can't not.

Besides that one time that I shot Angel, I've never really handled a firearm. Jayne's having a whole lot of fun teaching me, and to tell the truth, I'm having a whole lot of fun letting him. I kind of prefer the up close and personal approach to kicking ass, but there are some definite plusses to guns. They're a little sexy, and I like the kick. There's power there; you can feel it coursing through you as the weapon bucks back with the shot.

Even though I'm perfectly capable, he insists on squaring my position, his hands lingering over my thighs, ass, shoulders. He learned after the first time not to touch my breasts; I landed an uppercut to his jaw and threw him halfway across the cargo bay. I think that's what sealed my fate: he came trotting back with a dizzy grin on his face, just begging for more. The man likes a girl with some spunk.

Today, I spy a flicker of shadow out of the corner of my eye, and I suffer to throw off my bull's eye some to see what it is; it's Zoë, standing on the railing above us, watching our practice. When my eyes light on her, she disappears with celerity I usually associate with a sweep of black duster.

"Gorrammit, girl, watch what you're doing!" Jayne growls against my ear, so close his stubble tickles. 

"Sorry," I mumble, and allow him to dip his hands a little lower than usual while squaring me off, penance for my wandering eyes. "What's her deal, anyway? Zoë."

"Her husband got killed a few weeks back. Reavers. Fix your aim."

I find Zoë in her bunk, where I'm probably not welcome, but . . . fuck it. I'm not an A student in any area except for making things dead, and _definitely_ not in etiquette, and I may be on this boat a long time, and I'm not going to start things off by pussyfooting around with everyone.

Zoë's up and turned to meet me with a speed that's the _real_ her, and her face looks raw to prove it. I didn't catch her crying, because she's a warrior and not some soft doll, but I saw her unguarded for a second and I'm probably going to pay for it.

Her body tenses, predatory, defensive pose. Her expression hardens to mask the raw, past that even to anger.

"Get out."

Her voice is hard on top, but there's a current of tender underneath that just won't hide all the way.

"I want to talk," I say carefully.

"Not interested."

She takes a few steps towards me, offensive steps, boxing me out. She's taller than I am, but I'm stronger than she is . . . but I don't want to do that. I don't want this to be a balls-to-the-wall thing.

I put a hand up defensively. "I just want to talk." She looks like she's about to start menacing me out of the room again, so I add – very carefully – "And you could maybe use some company. I know I could use some that's not Jayne trying to grab my chest."

She relaxes a little, the corner of her mouth twitching imperceptibly. 

"You should never have beat him up," she says slowly, the not-quite-a-smile getting just a tiny bit bigger. "The _sha zi_ thought you were a fine piece of woman without the muscle-flexing; it's hopeless now."

"I knew it. I'm doomed. I can't help it; it's the way I communicate. This one guy, I hit him with a pool cue on the first date . . ."

The not-quite-a-smile produces a hint of a dimple in Zoë's cheek. "I can beat that. The first time I met my husband, I frisked—"

She stops immediately, all hints of a smile collapsing from her face, all light dimming immediately from her eyes.

"What happened?" 

I make my voice so gentle. The way I should have talked to people I hurt instead of pushing them further away, the way I never talked to Buffy, or . . .

She looks real shut off, real distant, and for a long time, I don't think she's going to answer. But then she says, real sudden, real quiet, "It was real quick."

"Jayne said it was Reavers."

"_Pi hua_. We brought them with us to outmaneuver the feds. I should have seen it, should have been able to stop it . . ."

I lay my hand on her arm. She's soft, and I'm surprised, which is stupid. I always forget how soft we are. I mean my touch to comfort her, but all it does is shake her out of her reverie. The distant look clears, and she looks sharp and severe again.

"Ain't anything can be done about it now," she says brusquely.

"Zoë," I say softly. She slithers out from under my grasp.

"I should go see if there's any work needs doing," she says dully, the words coming out muted, like her tongue's heavy.

"Zoë, I know a lot about forgiveness," I say suddenly, the words coming unbidden.

She stops moving, regards me for one more moment with her expression free from cover: she looks raw and real, like herself again for a moment. Wounded, wild, sad.

Then she steels her jaw and brushes past me, to the door.

"Ain't a thing can be done about it now," she mutters, and she's gone.


End file.
